Most people who talk about this Icelandic film try to be vague on what it’s about, judging that its twist is too central to fully enjoying it. That makes it impossible to really delve into any discussion about it however so consider this a spoiler warning. Lamb is part horror film part folk tale and I love that the audience inevitably tries to imagine all kinds of outlandish explanations to explain what we see, yet the truth, such as it were, is straightforward and literal. This may not be scary per se but it is very disquieting to watch and that means it’s good.
With the recent announcement of the retirement of Serena Williams, it seemed like a good time to watch this. As per its title however it is really about the father of the Williams sisters, Richard, and the beginning of the career of Venus. Richard’s role as the parental figure who planned for and pushed them towards world-beating success is the focus. As far as I can tell, it does an excellent job at being reasonably fair and accurate about the double-edged nature of this kind of intense coaching since childhood. That marks this as a little different from the run-of-the-mill sports biographical film and perhaps worth watching even if you don’t care much for sports.
So finishing up the DLC content as I’ve mentioned earlier ended up not taking very long at all. By my count, the DLC content includes two full maps with their associated missions, two Sniper Assassin maps and four Special Assignments set on the existing maps. However as I omitted writing about the Sniper Assassin mode at all in my previous post, I’ll include the first map of the set here as well.
I don’t understand the social dynamics of the debutante balls that are at the center of this film but since neither does the protagonist, I suppose that is rather the point. My wife noted how this American film weirdly feels British and that makes sense too because they are in essence enacting a watered-down imitation of the social conventions of the British aristocracy. Anyway for these astute observations and an on-point characterization of these barely adults and their infatuations, I give this film full marks and thoroughly recommend it.
This is a tough film to evaluate. It’s simple enough to understand what is going on and even its themes are readily apparent yet you might still be left wondering what exactly filmmaker Edson Oda intends to convey in it. The problem is that the premise is so strange, so deliberately abstracted from everyday reality that it overshadows the relatively straightforward theme of appreciating life in all of its myriad aspects. In the end, I appreciate that such a film could be funded and made at all but even as a science-fiction fan I find it difficult to muster much enthusiasm for it.
I think this is the first film I’ve watched that is entirely in the Welsh language and of course being one in the horror genre, it mines related folk tales and superstitions for good effect. Unfortunately that is pretty all that this film has going for it as it is otherwise a fairly straightforward and standard horror setup. Some of the gory imagery may be alright but it’s too restricted in its scope and probably isn’t worth your time.
Still a little light on science news this month. Even I am more concerned about economic and war-related news right now.
We’ll start with the COVID-19 news first as it’s still relevant even if we’re at the tail end of the pandemic. Pretty much everybody will have wondered why some people remain uninfected even after being exposed multiple times while others get infected only through casual contact. According to the preprint of a new study, it seems that around 1 in 10 carry a genetic mutation, called HLA B 1501, that led them to mount a more effective immune response against COVID-19 using T cells generated from common colds. They still get infected but they are usually asymptomatic as their immune system fights it off so quickly. Note that this study still needs to be peer reviewed however and no doubt it will receive plenty of attention.
Next is a study that has major implications on our understanding of how air pollution leads to cancer. The conventional view was that many of the carcinogenic substances that constitute the polluting particles in air directly damaged cells, leading to cancer. The team found however that many such substances don’t seem to directly damage cells at all. Instead, their presence activates an alarm signal in the lungs and when already damaged cells receive that signal, they may become cancerous. This raises the potential of taking drugs that block this alarm signal for people who live in particularly polluted areas to prevent damaged lung cells from actually becoming cancerous.
Finally a more speculative paper examining what causes some sub-regions of countries to want to secede. They determine this by applying a large dataset of 173 countries into a model of the political economy, which is always a little subjective but perhaps better than nothing. The upshot is that regions mainly want to secede not because of economic reasons but because the people of the region hold to an identity different from that of the wider country.
Finally here’s the video of NASA’s DART mission to attempt to redirect an asteroid by crashing a spacecraft into it just because it’s so cool. It’s just a test and so far there’s no word yet on how much they have managed to alter the asteroid’s trajectory with such a small spacecraft but it is undoubtedly cool and the stuff of science-fiction turned reality.
